Friday, September 04, 2009

Judging wine at the Southwest Vineyards Association competition

I've been down in Exeter today judging the Southwest Vineyards Association competition. We had a great panel of judges, and spent the day assessing almost 100 wines, of which more than half received a medal or commendation.

I'm very happy with the results we came to. It was an experienced panel of judges, and we were in quite good concordance for most of the wines. Where we weren't, we then went back and looked at the wine again, and had some discussion. It was really civilizd.

The standard of entries was really good overall. Very few wines were faulty or unpleasant, and there were a few that were lovely. In particular, some of the sparkling wines really impressed, as did many of the dry whites. The red flight had the highest incidence of problems, with a few of the wines showing volatility, reduction or brettanomyces.

We were at Kenton Vineyard, which is a relatively new venture: the vineyard was first planted in 2003 by Matthew and Jo Bernstein. Pictured, Richard Bampfield MW is checking what's in the glass of Alastair Peebles MW.

3 Comments:

Just out of interest Andrew Jefford has written a well thought out piece (as always) on the wine show system and judging at http://www.adelaidereview.com.au/food_and_wine.php?subaction=showfull&id=1251268278&archive=&start_from=&ucat=17& Takes out the silly bias too many of us suffer from